Case Study: University of Pennsylvania achieves rapid, reliable campus-wide emergency notification with OnSolve MIR3

University of Pennsylvania enhances safety and security

The University of Pennsylvania adopted the MIR3 rapid two‑way notification and response platform from OnSolve to alert faculty, staff, students and convene its Crisis Management Team. Penn’s challenge was to rapidly reach a diverse campus community of more than 50,000 people (plus parents) across multiple channels, replacing slow phone trees and blast emails.

OnSolve implemented MIR3 as the UPennAlert system (launched 2007), integrating via APIs with Penn’s custom interface, secure geographically redundant hosting (ISO 27001 / SSAE 16), self‑registration (DataSync), targeted group messaging and instant conference calls. The result: in a 2015 campus‑wide drill OnSolve’s MIR3 sent 86,000 SMS and email messages to over 50,000 people in just 5.5 minutes, and the system has since delivered rapid, reliable notifications in real incidents.

University of Pennsylvania

Maureen Rush

VP for Public Safety and Superintendent